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[antonio75]

This is a letter addressed to the City Hall of Gaia, Portugal in order to pressure them to reopen one of the most famous clubs in the World: "Rocks". Where all the big names have sometime played!! Please colaborate by signing with your full name, artist name, city and country of origin and sending it to : presidencia@mail.cm-gaia.pt. After that foward the original mail to all your friends. The Portuguese (and the world electronic) scene thanks you. The closing of this place is for Portugal an equivalent of the closing of Twilo for New York. The weekend after it closed, Laurent Garnier was scheduled to play there!!!

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Date: dd/mm/yyyy

To the President of the City Hall of Vila Nova de Gaia

Dear Mr. President,

Given the importance and the development that Dance Music has had worldwide, there are places that cannot help being associated with an image of quality and help propelling it on a national and international scale. Rocks’ is one of those mythical places, one of the oldest and more respected clubs in Portugal, and one where more than one generation has had the opportunity of seeing some of the most respected artists all over the globe in different musical categories, that year after year continue to stop by, helping spreading the message of Portugal being as developed as any other European country, at least in this field.

This image of greatness was built on the basis of hard work over the years and helped the cities of Porto and Gaia to be considered, by many national and international communities, as a mandatory place to visit. Communities that visited Rock’s with the certainty of watching good music shows, and to whom the city hall of Vila Nova de Gaia could not be indifferent.

Nightlife presently lives turbulent times all over the country. The Government was compelled to implement measures of security as, for example, surveillance cameras or metal detectors at the entrance of the clubs. These measures helped improving the effectiveness of preventing that people with a lower level of control, and the tendency of using violence as a way to solve their problems, could be the source of problems.

This sort of problems is a result of a society and not of a specific isolated spot. We condemn any kind of attitudes like these. We do not review ourselves in this type of philosophy of life and neither do the majority of people that used to be regulars at Rock’s and could not access this manifesto.

The above mentioned intends to appeal to the sensibility of the City Hall management to not commit the mistake of permanently close a space that had done so much to prevent young ones from following other paths that are not pure and healthy amusement. Rock’s does not deserve the aura of being a violent place as its closing portrays.

It is our conviction that closing Rock’s for good isn’t, and won’t be, the path pursued by the involved authorities. Instead, more and more inspections should be made, to ensure that the requirements and norms are being followed, in order to allow a higher lever of safety for the attendants.

Take away from people the necessary amusement, reality of a society that each day gets more evolved, is not the solution. Instead, we should expect from the ones governing and having been elected in a democrat way by us, the development of a course of action to improve the security feeling that allows the normal functioning of nightlife spots.

Yours truly,